Or at least a very significant part of it is; world demand for oil is around 89 million barrels a day, production is...around 88 or million barrels a day. There's no spare capacity or overhead for rapid production increases. The US imports most of its oil, and the price is set on world markets. You might have an argument if the US were the only country that used oil, and all of that oil was produced in the US, and there were significant surplus production capacity.

I apologize in advance if you were seriously advocating that.

for posting the quotes... I will be able to use them as I TRY to educate people.

I usually ask them... "Who owns the oil?" Usually they go blank and wonder why I am asking that particular question. I continue "Private oil companies own the oil."

They still sit there with a blank look on their faces....

I finish with..."They can sell the oil to whoever they want to... the highest bidder. So just because it is extracted on U.S. soil doesn't mean jack shit. More oil wells only means more oil for the profit orientated corporations to make more money."



YM

You know, burned it here?

You'd be taking however many thousands or millions of barrels a day out of the world market by doing that; the countries that were importing that gasoline would make up those lost barrels by buying on the world market, which would drive prices HIGHER since you've decided to keep however many millions of barrels per day (2 or 3, I think) in the US and off the international market. The US imports 11 million barrels of oil per day; be prepared to pay much more for that imported oil and for gasoline if those exports stop. This is how the mechanism of supply and demand works in a global market.